unknown glass rods

[shelly]

Hi everyone, sorry if this has been covered before, i found one thread that told me how to check for lead in glass but still not sure about result

My mother used to do lampwork about 30 years ago and has a whole load of rods she never used, she got them from a scientific supplier but cant remember anything else.  I have put a blue rod in a reducing flame and it streaked red and eventually a kind of muddy colour but the colours stay true in normal flame.

Any ideas as to whether this is safe to use on the lead front and/or what would you say is in it to cause the reddish colour.

Thanks

[mel]

Hi there,

Lots of blue rods will turn reddish if reduced, it's a reaction with copper.
Lucky you, bet you have some interesting glass, not sure about lead content but if you have good extraction it may not be a problem? Hope it's all the same CoE.

Good luck and don't forget to post pictures for us 

[shelly]

cool am going to play with it this afternoon, have got fairly good extractor will post some piccys if ll goes well

[flame n fuse]

Lead content becomes a problem if you want to sell beads anywhere in the EU for jewellery. There is a thread here somewhere, with a link to the EU regulations, which are worth reading. The regulations are not entirely logical as they do not allow for encasing in a non-lead glass, or using a tiny bit of a lead bearing glass amongst other glass, and they also exclude lead crystal, which is weird and must be to protect certain European industries.

I don't know how you would check easily for lead.

Quite a lot of (American) Bullseye glass contains lead in quantities which make it unsuitable for using in beads which you want to sell here, see  https://www.bullseyeglass.com/methods-ideas/glass-reactivity-chart.html to tell you which ones contain lead. I emailed them to ask how much lead and found that practically all of their lead containing glass would break EU regulations for jewellery . What recipes were used by any glass manufacturer 30 years ago is another matter. Reds and pinks are often the problem.

[Barnacle Bay]

Agree with the above.  Older blue glass is/was notorious for contain a high amount of lead, do be careful with the fumes 

[Pat from Canvey]

I'm not sure that glass does fume, perhaps at much higher temperatures than we achieve with our torches. Anyone know?